Chet Flippo

As we get to mid February each year, it comes down to nut cutting time for deciding who the next class of inductees to the Country Music Hall of Fame will be. Though who gets to decide is a big secret kept by the Country Music Association, or CMA, we all should feel like we have a say so and voice our opinions and hope the right people listen.

We already knew that Chris Stapleton was an amazing singer, a great songwriter, and an astounding guitar player. Now the rest of the world knows. And where all of this will take country music is something we can only speculate on at the moment, but it certainly is something to be taken as a very good sign, even if you’re just ho hum on Stapleton, or gaze a hairy eyeball at all those pop country songs he wrote for others.

In 2015, the names and music residing at the top of Billboard’s respective genre charts seems topsy-turvy and misguided. While Sam Hunt and his music that resembles next to nothing country is at the top of the country charts, an artist like Brandi Carlile who does uphold some of those country standards has the top album in rock. A very serious case can be made that those two artists should be switched.

Brad Paisley is mad as hell. “I’m not going to take this anymore,” he attests to The Associated Press in an article posed on Monday (9-1). He later goes on to declare, “It’s not fair.” What is Brad not going to take anymore? What is not fair? According to Paisley, it’s not fair that he got jobbed by the criticism of his song “Accidental Racist” from last year. And now the critics are being unfair…

It is sometimes easy to get swept up in moments and convince yourself that it has never been as bad as it is now. But one thing is hard to argue: the amount of loss that occurred in country music in 2013 was to a degree the genre has rarely, or never experienced before. 2013 seemed to be a year of suffering through one unfortunate news story after another.

The Bobby Bones Show started on the WSIX flagship station being syndicated to 15 other stations across the country, and in less than a year is already up to a total of 50 stations. With his current position at WSIX and Clear Channel’s big nationally-focused plan for country radio, Bobby Bones isn’t just poised to become the Gerry House of the next generation, he’s poised to become the biggest DJ in the history of country music.

Legacy music and culture magazine Rolling Stone is taking a cue from some of the pop, rock, and cultural personalities it has covered over the years and is “going country” in the second quarter of 2014 with a dedicated country music website looking to employ a full time staff of 10 to 15 people, and put out 8 to 12 articles a day. Rolling Stone plans to spend $1 million on the site in the first year.

Much ado has been made about Rolling Stone giving accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev rock star treatment by putting his mug on their latest issue. Though it’s a free country with free press and I would fight for the right of Rolling Stone to put whatever they want on their cover, here are some simple, friendly, alternative ideas of what could have graced the front of Rolling Stone’s July 2013 issue.

Chet Flippo’s wife had recently passed away, and today we got the unfortunate news that Chet Flippo has now joined her in the great newsroom in the sky. Every third year the Country Music Hall of Fame inducts a non-performer into its exclusive ranks. If there was ever a journalist that deserved to be included amongst the artists he covered so dutifully for so many years, it would be Chet Flippo.

2012 was a high profile year for Halls of Fame. From the kilted screecher Axl Rose pulling like a Sex Pistol and telling the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to kiss off, to the Baseball Hall of Fame not inducting a single member as the steroid era falls like a shadow on the eligibility timeline. The Country Music Hall of Fame has kept its legitimacy and honor over the years by being an exclusive get…

Now Saving Country Music has learned from a reliable source close to Waylon Jennings’ estate that the estate has “distanced” from the choosing of some of the artists on the tribute, especially on the second disc. The Waylon Estate says the family still supports the release of these volumes, but if it was left to them, a different set of contributors would have been chosen.

I don’t proclaim to know where country music will go from here, but what I do know is that Justin Moore and Outlaws Like Me has solidified its place in country music history as one of the big bullet points on the timeline that denotes a major event. And that the event it denotes is not a positive one. And that’s not just my opinion.

Country rap is here ladies and gentlemen. It is a full-blown chart-topping mainstream-acceptable sub-genre of country, like it or not. So what is a country purist to do? Well I have assembled a survivor’s guide to help you rebuke some of the ridiculous claims being made by country rap apologists.

In a time that calls for bold ideas, fresh blood, and innovation, country has decided to stick even more vehemently to their unimaginative formulas, while cutting costs ahead of unnecessary contraction to keep ill-conceived infrastructure in tact. Country is not void of talent, far from it. It is void of ideas of how to mine and evaluate that talent, and then educate its consumers on what to listen for, like listening at all. I listened to Taylor’s performance, but could barely hear anything.

Remember back when Taylor Swift won the CMA for Entertainer of the Year? We thought it couldn’t get worse for country music. There was a lot of surmising of where country music might go next after that win. Would there be a traditionalist backlash? Would country become even more pop oriented to try to mimic […]

Yeah I know, you have no intention to watch the CMA’s. It doesn’t represent what you believe to be country music, and last year you were blinded for two weeks by the sheer whiteness of Carrie Underwood’s teeth. But I will be watching, and I’ll tell you why: First, if you’re new to the game, […]

When Newsweek published an article calling out pop country a while back, I declared this was an important moment: a mainstream news outlet shining a big light on the sham of Nashville. Another reason I knew it was important was because Nashville took it like a shot right across the bow and came out swinging. […]